Friday, June 19, 2009

more porta follies

Earlier, I discussed gender parity in porta potties. Regardless of how you break out the facilities, you need to remember one cardinal rule: the sign on the door says “1 facility per 10 people per 40 hours”.

The porta-potty cleaner wants to stick to a weekly schedule, and frankly, may show up a couple days late. If you’re working 50 or 60 or more hours on site, you have to adjust your numbers so that you don’t run over. Also, people tend to avoid using the porta-potty except to pee, but if you’re working 10-12 hours (or more) and you’re stuck eating fast food, that porta-potty is going to get used a lot more.

Porta-potties are miserable any time of year - frigid in the winter, bug infested any other time. And regardless of how fastidious the crew is, the porta-potty is going to get disgusting. Luckily, porta potties are dirt cheap to rent, especially compared to your other field supply/rental costs. So please, please, be generous with the porta-potties. It’s a simple cost that improves morale exponentially.